


Muscle Memory

by AmbitiousWitch



Series: Ambitious Witch's Tumblr Prompts [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Not Beta Read, The Time War, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 00:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19841689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbitiousWitch/pseuds/AmbitiousWitch
Summary: Prompt: “I hate that I’m this now.” River Song x Eighth Doctor.





	Muscle Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alethia_II](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alethia_II/gifts).



> Wow! Back to the Time War and Eight again, I actually intended this to be Eleven/River first, but I decided to leave that one for my coming long series. The Big Finish Time War series is really helping me to be utterly horrified for everything that that poor bastard suffer in the course of it. So, at the end of it, I surely imagine him barely holding it. 
> 
> Timeline-wise, River is post-Darillium here (with Eleven, of course, because I'll be dammed if my mind ever registers the retconning abomination), and at just one trip from her penultimate encounter with Ten in the Library, so we have more wise and patient old River.
> 
> If anyone wants to send me prompts to [my blog](https://ambitious-witch.tumblr.com/ask), my inbox is always open and [my prompt list here](https://ambitious-witch.tumblr.com/tagged/writing-prompts), you can choose any prompt you like with any pairing except Twelve/River.
> 
> No beta, all the mistakes are mine.
> 
> Comments are appreciated!

"Still," River tries to keep her voice firm while she bandages the Doctor's wound. "I swear, you are the worst patient I have ever had."

"I didn't know you were a doctor, Clarisse," River tries to not react to her fake name.

"I am not and neither are you for what I am told, but we all have to do something to keep each other alive here, haven’t we?" River tries to lighten the mood, she knows that now it's quite a challenge. Being flying away in the TARDIS, away from that exploding planet and all those people. She had explained to him that, screamed it at him before he had collapsed because of the wounds.

“I hate that I am this now,” he hisses throwing his head against the back of the chair. “Just— Just so _useless_ at everything that it’s happening.”

“You can’t stop this war from running, _S_ — Doctor,” River presses her lips together to not use the term of endearment, she can’t risk herself to wake any memories on this face, she has already encountered him too many times that it was permitted. 

“Oh, but I could have,” he says, his voice dropping low, ”back in Skaro, I could have. I was just a coward. A moral coward before the eyes of all the universe. Now everyone is dying, everywhere and everywhen because of me.” 

River stares at him, he is not really looking at her, just at the ceiling with dead eyes. He probably has just weeks left. Weeks before he… She takes a deep breath, this is why it’s so difficult for her to be around this face. Even now, when he is burned, beaten and broken, River knows he wouldn’t do it. Not this face, because he still holds that idealism, that sense of hope completely unbeatable. She knows the war will smoother it until it’s gone, but not this face.

They stay in silence as River works with an occasional hiss of pain from him. River remembers, almost with a snort, how she had resisted too, in the times that her Doctor had tried to patch her up. Not when she was young, but know, the older she gets, the most painful it feels to show her true face to him, even when they are in sync. She wonders if her Doctor must be now with her Luna self, also coming from a war, but with herself. 

“There,” she helps him up, “now you should go to rest— “

“No,” his urgent tone sounds echoes in the control room. “No… I… I will take you to somewhere safe first. You can’t stay here.”

“Doctor, you’re not fit to fly or even _stand_ — “

“Just please, Clarisse, _please,_ ” his voice breaks, “just— Just let me take you somewhere it’s not erasing from the existence or a battlefield. You can go wherever you like but just— “ 

_Just let me know I saved one person today,_ she knows that that is what he is trying to say. Tears stick in her own eyes, he is still clinging to it. So young, so naive. 

River walks to him slowly, placing her hands over shoulders, the Doctor is trembling his dirty, bloodied hands gripping the console. “Alright,” she whispers, “but we are in the TARDIS, darling. We’re safe. You can rest a little and then I’ll go, I promise that nothing will happen.”

He doesn’t seem to notice the term of endearment or that River has rested her forehead on his back, just like she did… Or _will_ do, in his perspective at least, when her Doctor woke up with the memories of this dammed war. She asks herself if he maybe remembered back then, this, just by muscle memory.


End file.
